During the 19th century, Sheffield gained an international reputation forsteel production. Many innovations were developed locally, includingcrucible and stainless steel, fuelling an almost tenfold increase in the population during the Industrial Revolution. Sheffield received itsmunicipal charter in 1843, becoming the City of Sheffield in 1893. International competition in iron and steel caused a decline in traditional local industries during the 1970s and 1980s, coinciding with the collapse of coal mining in the area.

The 21st century has seen extensive redevelopment in Sheffield along with other British cities. Sheffield's gross value added (GVA) has increased by 60% since 1997, standing at £9.2 billion in 2007. The economy has experienced steady growth averaging around 5% annually, greater than that of the broader region of Yorkshire and the Humber.

The city is located within the valleys of the River Don and its four tributaries, the Loxley, the Porter Brook, the Rivelin, and the Sheaf. 61% of Sheffield's entire area is green space, and a third of the city lies within the Peak Districtnational park. There are more than 250 parks, woodlands and gardens in the city, and an estimated 2 million trees, giving Sheffield the highest ratio of trees to people of any city in Europe.

Clockwise from top left: The Sheffield Town Hall; St Paul's Tower from Arundel Gate; the Wheel of Sheffield;Meadowhall shopping centre; Sheffield station and Sheaf Square. Park Hill at the bottom.

History

The area now occupied by the City of Sheffield has been inhabited since at least the lateUpper Palaeolithic period, about 12,800 years ago. The earliest evidence of human occupation in the Sheffield area was found atCreswell Crags to the east of the city. In the Iron Age the area became the southernmost territory of the Pennine tribe called theBrigantes. It is this tribe who are thought to have constructed several hill forts in and around Sheffield. Following the departure of the Romans, the Sheffield area may have been the southern part of the Celtic kingdom of Elmet, with the rivers Sheaf and Don forming part of the boundary between this kingdom and the kingdom of Mercia.Gradually, Angliansettlers pushed west from the kingdom of Deira. A Celtic presence within the Sheffield area is evidenced by two settlements called Wales and Waleswood close to Sheffield. The settlements that grew and merged to form Sheffield, however, date from the second half of the first millennium, and are of Anglo-Saxon and Danish origin. In Anglo-Saxon times, the Sheffield area straddled the border between the kingdoms of Mercia andNorthumbria. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports that King Eanred ofNorthumbria submitted to King Egbert of Wessex at the hamlet of Dore(now a suburb of Sheffield) in 829, a key event in the unification of the kingdom of England under the House of Wessex. After the Norman conquest, Sheffield Castle was built to protect the local settlements, and a small town developed that is the nucleus of the modern city.

By 1296, a market had been established at what is now known as Castle Square, and Sheffield subsequently grew into a small market town. In the 14th century, Sheffield was already noted for the production of knives, as mentioned in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, and by the early 1600s it had become the main centre of cutlery manufacture in England outside of London, overseen by the Company of Cutlers in Hallamshire. From 1570 to 1584, Mary, Queen of Scots, was imprisoned in Sheffield Castle and Sheffield Manor

Rail

Major railway routes through Sheffield railway station include the Midland Main Line, which links the city to London via the East Midlands, the Cross Country Route which links the East of Scotland and Northeast of England with the West Midlands and the Southwest, and the lines linking Liverpool and Manchester with Hull and East Anglia. With the redevelopment of London St Pancras station (now St Pancras International) complete, Sheffield has a direct connection to continental Europe.East Midlands Trains run services to St Pancras International and Eurostar run services from there to France and Belgium. The Master Cutler, a named passenger express train running from Sheffield railway station to London St Pancras, provides a direct connection to the capital.

The coalition government announced in October 2010 that Sheffield would be included in the proposed High Speed Rail network connecting the North of England with London. The plan will see Sheffield and Leeds served by the same line which will connect with another to Manchester just south of Birmingham, with London Euston station being the probable London terminus. Construction of the Yorkshire/East Midlands High Speed line is likely to begin 2025 and services begin operation in 2032.

Education

Hallam Square and the entrance to Sheffield Hallam University's City Campus

Universities and colleges

Sheffield has two universities, the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University. The two combined bring about 65,000 students to the city every year.Sheffield University was established in 1897 as University College Sheffield and became the University of Sheffield in 1905.

Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) is a university on two sites in Sheffield. City Campus is located in the city centre, close to Sheffield railway station, and Collegiate Crescent Campus is about two miles away, adjacent to Ecclesall Road in south-west Sheffield. The university is the third largest in the UK, with more than 37,000 students (of whom over 4,000 are international students), 4,170 staff and 747 courses. Sheffield Hallam University's history goes back to 1843 with the establishment of the Sheffield School of Design. During the 1960s several independent colleges (including the School of Design) joined to become Sheffield Polytechnic (Sheffield City Polytechnic from 1976) and was finally renamed Sheffield Hallam University in 1992.

Sheffield has two further education colleges, The Sheffield College and Longley Park Sixth Form College. The Sheffield College is organised on a federal basis and was originally created from the merger of six colleges around the city, since reduced to just four: Sheffield City (formerly Castle) near the city centre, Hillsborough, serving the north of the city and Norton and Peaks to the south.

Secondary, primary and pre-school education

There are 137 primary schools, 26 secondary schools—of which 9 have sixth forms: (High Storrs, King Ecgberts, King Edward VII, Silverdale, Meadowhead, Tapton, UTC Sheffield, Notre Dame Catholic High and All Saints Catholic High)—and a sixth-form college, Longley Park Sixth Form College. The city's five independent private schools include Birkdale School and the Sheffield High School. There are four academies in the City – Sheffield Springs Academy, Sheffield Park Academy, Firth Park Academy and Parkwood Academy. There are also 12 special schools and a number of Integrated Resource Units in mainstream schools which are, along with all other schools, managed by Sheffield City Council. All schools are non-selective, mixed sex schools. The Early Years Education and Childcare Service of Sheffield City Council manages 32 nurseries and children's centres in the city.

Culture and attractions

Attractions

The Sheffield Walk of Fame in the City Centre honours famous Sheffield residents past and present in a similar way to the Hollywood version. Sheffield also had its own Ferris Wheel known as the Wheel of Sheffield, located atop Fargate shopping precinct. The Wheel was dismantled in October 2010 and moved to London's Hyde Park. Heeley City Farm and Graves Park are home to Sheffield's two farm animal collections, both of which are fully open to the public.

There are about 1,100 listed buildings in Sheffield (including the whole of theSheffield postal district).Of these, only five are Grade I listed. Fifty-nine are Grade II*, but the overwhelming majority are listed as Grade II. Compared to other English cities, Sheffield has few buildings with the highest Grade I listing—Liverpool, for example, has 26 Grade Ilisted buildings. This situation led the noted architecture historian Nikolaus Pevsner, writing in 1959, to comment that the city was "architecturally a miserable disappointment", with no pre-19th-century buildings of any distinction. By contrast, in November 2007, Sheffield's Peace and Winter Gardens beat London's South Bank to gain the Royal Institute of British Architects' Academy of Urbanism "Great Place" Award, as an "outstanding example of how cities can be improved, to make urban spaces as attractive and accessible as possible".

Theatres

Sheffield has two large theatres, the Lyceum Theatre and the Crucible Theatre, which together with the smaller Studio Theatre make up the largest theatre complex outside London, located in Tudor Square. The Crucible Theatre is the home (since 1977) of the World Snooker Championships and hosts many well-known stage productions throughout the year. The Lyceum, which opened in 1897, serves as a venue for touring West End productions and operas by Opera North, as well as locally produced shows. Sheffield also has the Montgomery Theatre, a small 420 seater theatre located a short distance from Tudor Square, opposite the town hall on Surrey Street. There are also a large number of smaller amateur theatres scattered throughout the city.

Museums

Sheffield's museums are managed by two distinct organisations. Museums Sheffield manages the Weston Park Museum (a Grade II* listed Building), Millennium Galleries and Graves Art Gallery. Sheffield Industrial Museums Trust manages the museums dedicated to Sheffield's industrial heritage of which there are three.Kelham Island Museum (located just to the North of the city centre) showcases the city's history of steel manufacturing. Abbeydale Industrial Hamlet (in the south of the city) is a Grade I Listed building and a Scheduled Ancient Monument. Shepherd Wheel (in the south-East of the city) is a former water-powered grinding workshop, Grade II listed, and a Scheduled Ancient Monument.

Entertainment

The Oasis food court at Meadowhall Centre

Sheffield has four cinema complexes, 2 of which are in the city centre and 2 in the Lower Don Valley. Valley Centertainment is a leisure and entertainment complex in the Don Valley. It was built on land previously occupied by steel mills near what is now Meadowhall and the Sheffield Arena. It is home to several restaurants, bars, acinema multiplex, and a bowling alley. It is also the largest Cineworld complex in the United Kingdom, containing 20 screens in one building. Odeon Sheffield, situated on Arundel Gate in the city Centre and Vue, located within Meadowhall Shopping Centre, are the two other mainstream cinemas in the city. The Showroom, an independent cinema showing non-mainstream productions, is located in Sheaf Square, close to Sheffield Station. In 2002 the Showroom was voted as the best Independent cinema in the country by Guardian readers.

Owing to its long history, Sheffield has a large number of pubs throughout the city. West Street, running through the heart of the West End district of the city centre, is home to many pubs, bars, bars and clubs and attracts many student visitors. A recent addition to the city's nightlife is Leopold Square, situated just off the northern end of West Street. Aagrah, an Indian restaurant in the square which serving Kashmiri cuisine, has recently been voted "Best Restaurant Group in the UK" at the prestigious British Curry Awards.